News Brief

July 22, 2011MARYVILLE, MO |
By: Wayman

Heat And Insects

Our intense heat is not just hard on crops and gardens, it also brings insect pests.

The extension agency points to grasshopper numbers and green stinkbugs as two of the species starting to multiply. The stinkbugs can be especially hard on soybean pods and can cause seeds to abort. Spider Mites have also been discovered in Holt county bean fields. Also of concern is the soybean podworm, which can be controlled either pesticides or with introduction of the green clover worm, which carries an organism that can kill the podworm. But regional agronomist Wayne Flanary adds there are two benefits to the weather conditions we are having, sudden death syndrome for beans and gray leaf spot are both slowed by our current run of hot and dry weather.